Bay Briefing: A life or death delay?

A construction worker stands on scaffolding while working to install large struts used as part of a planned suicide net sit underneath the east side of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Calif. Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019.

Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Good morning, Bay Area. It’s Thursday, Dec. 12, and a former Black Panther is celebrating the group’s work on childhood hunger while 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is chasing the records of the likes of Joe Montana and Steve Young. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

Working in the fog was accounted for and the materials to build it are either here or on their way. So why the delay? Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District officials cite problems with the lead contractor, Shimmick Construction Co., which was acquired by global corporation AECOM two years ago.

The sale led to distraction and turnover, slowing many projects down, district General Manager Denis Mulligan tells reporter Rachel Swan. Plus, the company presented an overly optimistic timeline to build.

If you need help: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline — Call 800-273-8255 to reach a counselor at a locally operated crisis center 24 hours a day for free. Crisis Text Line— Text “Connect” to 741741 to reach a crisis counselor any time for free.

Impeachment veteran

WASHINGTON, DC DECEMBER 4: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) listens to testimony by constitutional scholars before the House Judiciary Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill December 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. This is the first hearing held by the Judiciary Committee in the impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump, whom House Democrats say held back military aid for Ukraine while demanding it investigate his political rivals. The Judiciary Committee will decide whether to draft official articles of impeachment against President Trump to be voted on by the full House of Representatives. (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)

Photo: Saul Loeb / Getty Images

San Jose Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren likes to tell a joke around Capitol Hill these days: She would be 4-for-4 on impeachments — if only she hadn’t missed Andrew Johnson.

Lofgren was initially wary of bringing impeachment charges and has taken a deliberate, solemn approach, but she tells reporter Dustin Gardiner why the impeachment hearings on President Trump have been unlike any other.

Katherine Campbell (right) leads children in some stretches as David Miles (left), owner Church of Eight Wheels, assists by holding a microphone before breakfast at the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast for Children Program 50th year anniversary event she organized at the Church of Eight Wheels on Thursday, November 14, 2019 in San Francisco, Calif. Campbell started volunteering at the Back Panther Party's Free Breakfast for Children Program in 1969 which has inspired her in her work as a community specialist.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Half a century ago, Katherine Campbell was one of the chefs who scrambled the eggs and buttered the toast every morning for the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program in San Francisco. Hundreds of kids got free meals in the two years that the program operated.

“I’m old now,” she said. “Nobody wants to hear about what I did 50 years ago. But making sure a kid has breakfast - that’s work that always needs doing.”

Read more from reporter Steve Rubenstein and videojournalist Lea Suzuki.

Chasing the greats

San Francisco 49ers' Jimmy Garoppolo celebrates after Niners' 24-20 win over Pittsburgh Steelers in NFL game at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday, September 22, 2019.

Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is on pace to have one of the best statistical seasons in the history of a franchise that has employed two of the best QBs in NFL history.

After Garoppolo’s 349-yard, four-touchdown performance in a 48-46 win over the Saints, he’s staring down a group that includes Joe Montana, Steve Young and Jeff Garcia with three regular-season games left.

“I think he hasn’t cared about what the naysayers and the outside world has thought this entire time,” cornerback Richard Sherman said Sunday. “But I think it’s a wake-up call for them as well of the quarterback he can be — of the quarterback he is during clutch moments.”

Spin Scooter senior policy counsel Nima Rahimi (left) and Teamsters Local #665 president Tony Delorio (center) observe Supervisor Ahsha Safai tally union cards signed by Spin employees voting to join the union in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. Spin becomes the first scooter company in the nation to have a unionized workforce.

Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Workers for San Francisco scooter-rental company Spin voted to join a local union Wednesday, the first labor organizing at a scooter company in the city and likely the first in the nation.

Spin, owned by Ford, was one of the four companies to win a San Francisco permit to rent electric scooters on sidewalks in the city’s second pilot program. which started in October. The roughly 40 workers who will unionize are maintenance specialists, shift leads, operations specialists, neighborhood ambassadors, deployers and collectors.

Claudia Bogner, 73, poses for a portrait in her Bernal Heights home in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, April 6, 2019. Bogner learned through genetic testing that her father, Charles Bogner, abandoned his first wife and two sons in New York in 1939. He moved to California and married Bogner's mother, Katherine, in 1942. The marriage resulted in the births of Claudia and her younger brother Paul. Bogner had been close to her father and never suspected anything nefarious about his past. The news that he'd been married once before with two sons came as a shock. Bogner has since connected with her older brother Del. Lyn Bogner, Charles's second son, passed away decades ago.

A decade before she was born, her father had another family in New York. He left them and moved to San Francisco, where he met Bogner’s mother and started a new family, who he stayed devoted to until his death. He never mentioned his other wife and children.

Genetic testing, run through companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com, has torn apart some families by exposing long-buried secrets, even as it reveals fragile new relationships among strangers who discover common DNA but no shared history.

Bogner has been lucky: She’s met much of the family that her father abandoned and found them to be kind and respectful, and she’s been able to compartmentalize what she’s learned about her dad in a way that lets her continue to cherish warm memories of him. It doesn’t work out that way for everyone.

Taylor Kate Brown joined The San Francisco Chronicle in November 2018 as Newsletter Editor. She writes the morning Bay Briefing email and manages The Chronicle’s collection of newsletters.

She previously worked for BBC News for the website’s North American edition in Washington, DC, first as a staff writer and then as features producer and editor. Before the BBC she worked as a Local Editor for Patch in Maryland and earned a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She got her start in journalism at the Connecticut Post.